In the the Depression, newspapers weren’t written solely to inform the comfortable. Now, they are. From the most ambitious journals to the yellowest tabloids, all assume a base of readers who have a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air, with at least one enormous chair.

West’s central character, the Miss Lonelyhearts of the title, didn’t see that broad base as a good thing. The book opens when he’s already sick of his job.

What the little park needed, even more than he did, was a drink. Neither alcohol nor rain would do. Tomorrow, in his column, he would ask Broken-hearted, Sick-of-it-all, Desperate, Disillusioned-with-tubercular-husband and the rest of his correspondents to come here and water the soil with their tears. Flowers would then spring up, flowers that smelled of feet.

I like Carolyn Hax, syndicated advice columnist from the Washington Post. Is there ever a letter from a family of four living on dog food? How about, my kid’s selling heroin, and my daughter’s into dog fights? I can’t afford glasses and can’t see well enough to read street signs? My kids dream of cereal? I wish we had beds? Nope. None of the above.

I’m not idealizing the press in the old days. Black people were the other, either at odds with the law or a credit to their race. Women were married or old maids, sweet young things or tarts. Boys were boys, and girls were asking for it. Homosexuals? Their names came up only to be rebuked and scorned.

But those newspapers were economically inclusive, and today’s aren’t. Could that be part of the reason for our demise?